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Kyle’s attention sharpened. “When?”

“Maybe twenty minutes ago. I think.” Dana frowned, trying to reconstruct it. “The channel was a mess. Somebody was calling trailer four forward, and she came in underneath them.”

“What did she say?”

“Her name. Staging.” Dana rubbed ash from one eyebrow with the back of her wrist. “Then something about Virgil’s north. That’s all I got.”

Mac looked at the board again.

North fence.

“She didn’t sound like she was in trouble?”

“No. I thought she was just checking in.” Dana’s mouth tightened. “By the time the channel cleared, she was gone.”

“It didn’t sound like a mayday?”

“No. I would have sent help, obviously.”

Mac’s attention snapped to a truck coming in fast from the east side of the property.

Virgil.

Mac was moving before the man had his door open.

“Have you seen Jodie?”

Virgil stopped halfway out of the cab. He was pressing a bandana to his hand, which looked bloodstained. “No, why?” His voice sounded hoarse from the smoke.

“She went looking for you.”

“What the hell for?”

“You were overdue. She had you marked out at the north fence and no time back.”

Virgil frowned. “I was with the cattle.”

“Where?”

“East pasture. We got Hank’s stock through, then started them east behind the sheep.”

Mac felt a cold pit open in his stomach. “Then why does the board say north fence?” He nodded at Virgil’s hand. “And what happened there?”

“North fence is where I started, where Hank’s cattle were. Cut my hand like a damned idiot when I pulled the fence back, started the cattle through toward the east fast as I could, and met up with my boys partway there.”

“You come back the same way?”

“No. Took a different two-track.”

Shit. “At the fence opening, did you go west at all?”

Virgil stared at him. “No. We pushed the cattle through and took them east.”

Jodie had gone out there looking for a man who’d been there and gone by the time she found the hole in the fence.

So what’s keeping her?

“What’s past the opening?”